Jeb Bush and immigration

Jeb Bush would give legal status to illegals but no path to citizenship (“Jeb Bush’s new book adds spice to debate on immigration,” March 6). Why bother? They are already beneficiaries of that situation. For a while illegals could be jailed for deportation after committing crimes, but no more. When you fail to enforce current law why do you think more law is the answer?

The only possible benefit to the Jeb Bush suggestion is the fact that being here legally gives greater access to welfare programs. If anyone thinks this will discourage illegal immigration then they must also believe that entitlements, as structured, are just fine. – Jim Reid, Pacific Beach

Regarding “Bush clarifies view on immigration pathway” (utsandiego.com, March 5): Jeb Bush’s policy reversal here should surprise no one. As a potential presidential nominee in 2016, Mr. Bush is now professing a position on immigration designed to ally himself with the tea party wing of the Republican Party despite, and in contradiction of, his earlier more centrist position. I certainly will not be surprised when candidate Bush in 2016 expects 47 percent of the nation’s population to have forgotten this flip-flop, and then attacks the media for bringing it up in the campaign. – Joseph S. Carmellino, Solana Beach

It’s good to see that Jeb Bush and Ruben Navarrette (“The poison pill in immigration debate,” Opinion, Feb. 20), at least, recognize the elephant in the room on the subject of immigration: Some people just want to come here to work, and then go home. Recognition of this simple truth has the potential to bring both clarity and some much-needed calm to the national debate on immigration policy.

Furthermore, I suspect that it is in our country’s best interests to allow ordinary people to come here to work, and then leave when they want to, particularly as applied to our neighbors to the south. I have worked with Ph.D. researchers from a number of different countries and observed how they change over time upon exposure to us. When they go home, they are referred to as “The Americans,” because they have changed the way they do business. They learn about efficiency, and become intolerant of corruption and dumb laws. I suspect the same is true of less-impressively-credentialed, but still ambitious, ordinary people. It’s already easy for them to come here. We should make it easy for them to return.

A person who lives here and works here, and sends money home, could also return home with resources that may be weak here, but significant there. I envision 20,000 men in their 50s at home in Venezuela, with a little bit of money. – Valerie E. Looper, San Diego

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